Monaco in springtime, and the world’s best tennis players are out in force, scattered across the clay courts of the Monte Carlo Country Club and filing past well-dressed, heavily bejewelled Côte d’Azur spectators.

Andy Murray scuttles by, tentatively signing autographs before being led off to the locker room. Juan Carlos Ferrero stands tall, smiling and making small talk with the youngsters who have gathered around him and hover somewhere down by his knees. They reach up with their scraps of paper and tournament programmes, waving pens at him and shouting their names.

But the real action is taking place on the court opposite us, where the stand shakes with the delight of hundreds of eager supporters. Only this court is bursting with fans as they jostle for seats. The cheers ring out into the chilly mid-afternoon sky: “Rafa, Rafa, Rafa.”

The stand is overflowing, so I am ushered courtside to watch Rafael Nadal conduct his training session. His coach Toni, who is also his paternal uncle, approaches the court at the same time, his shoulder heavy with the weight of half-a-dozen rackets. He smiles and shakes my hand. “Welcome,” he says. I’m told it is the only English word he knows.

Standing on court while the world No 2 plies his trade is a rare treat. The colossal speed of the ball and the unnerving accuracy of every shot are there in all their glory. Their impact is exacerbated by proximity. It is all breathtaking. The 19-year-old from Majorca fires heavily spun forehands across the net with such power that it is hard to see most of them coming. What must it feel like to face these balls? And this is only a practice session.

Nadal adjusts his headband as his admirers adjust their binoculars. Like a rock star reaching for a microphone, there are screams of appreciation as he moves to flick the ball expertly on to the face of his racket and send it thundering over the net.

Nadal had a tremendous year in 2005, and, despite injury at the end of it, is seen as the only man likely to challenge Roger Federer, the world No 1, in the immediate future. The fact that he plays with similar flair and excitement to Federer has earned him fans worldwide. There are fists pumping and leaps of elation with every point scored.

Then there are the clothes. The Capri-length shorts that have been the subject of much mocking on phone-ins and websites across America. The citrus-coloured shirts that have ranged from an arresting orange to a stunning lime green. The curly, jaw-length hair, held back by a flat, wide alice band that owes more to the style of Doris Day than John McEnroe.

But what Nadal lacks in sartorial judgment, he more than makes up for on court, with his slashing topspin forehand and fancy footwork. Well-judged shot after shot skids to within millimetres of the baseline, while the supporters stand three deep beside the stand, mesmerised.

Nadal is the only man to have beaten Federer this year. With every match, he grows more accustomed to the physical, emotional and mental demands of life as a tennis professional. The energy-sapping clay-court season has just begun. At its climax is the French Open at the end of next month, followed by grass and the Stella Artois and Wimbledon.

“Rafa, Rafa, Rafa,” they shout as he continues his practice, apparently oblivious to the furore he is causing all around. They coo when he fiddles with his hair, and as he dances around the court, leaping, prancing and twirling through his warm-up, their eyes never leave him.

“It’s crazier than this in Spain,” says Benito Perez-Barbadillo, an ATP Tour representative as well as being Nadal’s confidant and sometime translator. “There, he’s treated like Ronaldo.” He says pictures of Nadal sell out as soon as they go on sale in Spain. And it is not just in Europe. Perez-Barbadillo remembers walking through New York City with Nadal. “We were on 90th Street or something, miles away from the centre.” They went to step through the doors of a building when a large, rough-looking man stopped them in their tracks. “Hey,” he cried out, aggressively. “You Rafael Nadal? Nice to meet you, man.”







IT IS 8PM NOW, and Nadal has returned to the hotel. He was on the practice court for 10 hours, but feels that he didn’t do quite enough. When the rain delayed his second session, he headed inside while the fans stayed outside, awaiting his return beneath umbrellas, afraid to give up their seats for fear of losing them. Such was the demand to watch the young man from Manacor practise in the rain.

“It was too dark to play any more,” says Nadal, still musing on his lost court time as he lounges across a sofa, eating crisps as fast as he can move his hand to his mouth. He requests a bottle of Coca-Cola “with a straw” and sucks thirstily until it is quickly gone. He requests another. He looks like a teenager now — about a quarter of the age of the rock star tennis player on court No 8 earlier.

“This is nice,” he says with a smile, still shovelling crisps with staggering speed. “I am a simple boy, really. I like simple things. I like fishing on a boat. I like being with my family. And . . .” he smiles at the empty bowl “. . . and I like crisps.”

Today the simple boy from a simple place, with simple likes, will take on a simply monstrous task. Nadal plays Federer in the final of the Monte Carlo Masters, to defend his title. With a victory over the Swiss player in Dubai under his belt, Nadal has some psychological advantage for which to reach as he approaches the match, but he knows how far ahead of the pack Federer is: “Look at his points. He is the No 1. That is all there is to say. He is there to be beaten.” The Spaniard admits to watching the video of his victory over Federer before leaving for Monaco, to give him the “lift” of knowing that he could beat the world’s best player.

“That win was very important for me,” he says. “It came in the second tournament after I came back from injury. I enjoyed the match. I went to the court with a great calm that day and winning was a very special sensation.”

Since he and Federer are ranked first and second, they only meet in the final stages of tournaments, “so there is always some added pressure on us”.

Nadal says he usually knows fairly soon in a match whether he will win. He gets what he calls “a very special feeling in me” when he has the measure of his opponent, and it drives him on

to victory.

“Last year when I went to Barcelona, I had it,” he says. “A special feeling from the start and I won.”

There may well have been a number of very special feelings last year. Nadal had the sort of 12 months of which most tennis professionals can only dream. He has won more than 40 consecutive games, and hasn’t been defeated on clay for more than a year. He is in Monte Carlo seeking his 14th title after winning 11 tournaments last year, with eight titles on clay.



In the space of a glorious 27 days he won 17 matches and three singles titles on clay: the Masters Series championships in Monte Carlo and Rome on either side of the Barcelona tournament. But it all went wrong at the end of the year when he suffered a stress fracture to his left foot that kept him out of competition for four months. “Now I haven’t got that rhythm that comes with match practice. I’ve only played four tournaments, and last year I had played double that,” he says. “But every day, every match I improve a little. I feel stronger all the time. Injury makes you appreciate everything so much more.”





THE RAFAEL NADAL story is the tale of three brothers — his father, Sebastian, and his two uncles Toni and Miguel, who live close to one another on Majorca. His tennis adventure began 16 years ago. As a three-year-old with a burgeoning passion for football, he was introduced to tennis by Toni, a competitive tennis player who had some success at national level in Spain. Miguel, meanwhile, was a footballer, a fine defender with an imposing physique who played for Spain in the three most recent World Cups and had a long, successful club career with Barcelona and Majorca before retiring this year.

Toni encouraged his young nephew to play tennis for fun alongside his football practice, but noticed quickly how confident the boy was with a racket in his hand. “I carried on playing football as well as tennis, but slowly played more and more tennis with my uncle,” says Nadal. “But I still preferred football. That was my real love when I was a young boy.”

By the time he was five, he was going to the tennis club twice a week to play. When he was eight, and a promising striker in the local football team, he won the regional tennis championships for under-12s.

“That’s when people started to say maybe I could make it to the top in tennis,” he says. Winning a tournament for boys three years older than him did not go unnoticed. Clubs began calling and inviting him to play for them, and Uncle Toni started to work more seriously with his young protégé. He began urging his nephew to rush to the net, even when he was beating opponents from the baseline. He also encouraged his young charge to change hands and play with his left, even though he is right-handed. “He noticed that I was playing forehand shots with two hands, so one day he told me to try with one hand. I used my left foot in football, so he thought I should try that. I did. It worked.”

Too right it worked. By the time he was 12 he had won the Spanish and European tennis titles in his age group and was playing either tennis or football all the time. Then in stepped the third of the three brothers, Rafael’s father, Sebastian. “My father made me choose between football and tennis so my school work didn’t suffer,” Nadal says. “I chose tennis. Football had to stop straight away.”

Had he opted for the kicking game, there is every chance that he would be preparing for the World Cup in June, instead of the Stella Artois and Wimbledon. By the time he was 13, he was playing tennis every day. He went to school from 9am until noon, played tennis from 12 until 2, had lunch, school in the afternoon, then played a further two hours in the evening.

At 14 the Spanish tennis federation suggested that he leave Majorca to train in Barcelona, the centre of Spanish tennis. But his parents wanted him to stay. “They were worried about my education suffering too much,” Nadal says. “My uncles both agreed with them, so I stayed at home.”

Turning down the offer meant resigning himself to less financial support from the federation, but his father offered to pay for his training. Those close to Nadal, including Toni, claim that the decision to stay at home with his family was crucial to his development into the player he is today. He continued to train with his uncle, but took it all much more seriously. He would play at least twice a day as well as compete regularly; by 2003 Nadal was, at 16, ranked in the world’s top 50.

“I think that having my uncle and coach with me has been the best for me. He is uncle first and coach second. It is a nicer life to travel round with your uncle there. My family can’t come to all matches, but I always have my family there in my uncle.”

We meet a week after Andy Murray’s departure from his coach and the start of his search for a new mentor. “I realise how lucky I am,” Nadal says. “There is no question of that with me. We are a team — my uncle, me and my physical trainer. We work together.”

Uncle Toni is credited with keeping the youngster’s feet on the ground. Stories abound about him making Nadal carry the rackets and balls, and not letting his vast success change him in any way.

“My goal in life when I was a young boy was to be happy. My goal now? To be happy. Nothing has changed. I have got better at tennis, but that is all. Nothing in me has changed. People think they will meet me and I will be a different person, but I won’t. I am the same. I still want nothing more than to be happy.”

And what makes a 19-year-old millionaire tennis prodigy happy? “My family make me happy. It is my No 1 wish for them to be all healthy. For my friends to be happy. For me to be able to play tennis.”

Simple wishes from a simple boy. “What more could anyone want?” he asks. To beat Federer and become the world’s No 1 player? “That would be good. That could help me to be happy,” he says with a laugh.

“I am serious, though, when I say I think first of my family and that they are most important to me. In Manacor I’m normal. People have known me since I was a little kid. They congratulate me when I win something, but treat me like everybody else. I have the same plans for my life as everyone else.”

Football still fascinates him. He watches it whenever he can, and says he will be “hyperactive with excitement” when the World Cup comes round.

Away from the international game, he supports Real Madrid because he remembers his father giving him a Real shirt when he was very young. “My uncle was playing at the time. I think my father gave me the shirt to have a joke with him.”

Nadal says the things he dislikes the most are losing and pain — in that order. “My uncle keeps saying that losing is important in this game. If you play tennis, you lose, that’s how it is. Only one person can win every game in a tournament. No one man can win every tournament. The best players lose; everybody loses some time. I am learning that lesson, but I do feel much more nervous when I come out to play after having lost. Every week is a different place, a different tournament. You learn that losing is part of this game. But winning — ah, winning is so much nicer.”

Nadal is a particularly powerful clay- court player, but says the grass of SW19 appeals to him most of all. “My tennis dream is to win Wimbledon. The Spanish do not do well at that tournament and it is a special event. I think every tennis player dreams of winning it one day, don’t they? It would be a beautiful moment to have success there. It’s so special.”





ONCE the interview has finished, Nadal stands up politely to shake my hand, then reaches for his mobile phone, which has been flashing and jumping on the table throughout the interview. “Goodbye. Thank you for come,” he says. “Sorry my English not so good. I only speak quarter of English. Maybe quarter of a quarter. Not good.” I tell him that his English is really not so bad, but he promises to work on it all the same. “Next time you come, I be better,” he says.

He pumps a series of numbers into his phone as I turn to leave. “I call Moya now,” he explains. “He very good friend.” He says he has a half- arrangement to meet the fellow Spaniard in a couple of hours for dinner at a Japanese restaurant. “I must eat soon,” he explains, pointing at the crisp bowl. “See. I’m very hungry.” He says he always calls Moya before booking his flights, because he loves to travel with lots of people. “

It’s more fun always to have friends and family around, isn’t it? I like to have lots of people around — for eating, for flying. Always.”

I leave him to his dinner plans and head for the reception area, to take the lift back up to my room, six flights up in this hotel full to the rafters with tennis players. As the lift doors close, a hand pushes through the gap to stop it, and in steps Uncle Toni.

“Ah,” he says, spotting me, as I stand in the corner, fiddling with my tape recorder. “Journaliste. Halo.” Over the next few seconds we attempt to chat. He does not speak English. The only other language I speak is French. We both shrug and smile stupidly at one another.

“I have just interviewed Rafael,” I try again, speaking loudly for some reason and indicating the tape recorder and the notebook, bulging with notes about his famous nephew. Toni just nods and says a few things in Catalan which I think mean “How did it go?”, but may have meant, “I really don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

I battle on. “He was very good,” I say, speaking in the sort of slow, clear English that one might use when talking to a toddler or a helpless drunk. Still more smiles and nods, then we arrive at his floor. Toni stands in the lift door and takes a deep breath. “He good boy,” he says. “He work hard and he look after people. He nice boy. Goodbye.”

Then, with that succinct summary of his nephew in a language he can neither speak nor understand, he is gone.

The time may arrive when Nadal’s desire and enthusiasm fade, when his eagerness to throw himself after every shot and head straight home with his uncle after every match becomes subsumed by the effects of money, fame or injuries, but for now Nadal is a treasure.

His self-effacement, lack of self-indulgence and sheer joy at the life he is leading make him a refreshing antidote. Here’s hoping that success doesn’t change things.